Werewolves, Organs And Old-School Shocks - February On The Horror Channel By
James Whittington, Sunday 27th January 2013

February is almost here and the Horror Channel has some superb premieres for you to enjoy. We’ve got classic chills, operatic shrills, lycanthrope kills and distressing thrills.

Here's the skinny on what we have to offer.

February 8th - The GateThe Gate is a classic old school fantasy horror that has Stephen Dorff in his first big screen role. Three children unwittingly release a horde of nasty pint-sized demons and face a life or death struggle to overcome them.

February 15th - Repo! The Genetic Opera
The all-star blood-thirsty musical, Repo! The Genetic Opera comes to Horror this month. It stars Anthony Head, Alexa Vega, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton and Bill Mosely. In a future where organ failure is common a company loans transplants... but the repossession clause is a killer.

February 22nd - Ginger Snaps
Indy favourite Ginger Snaps is a true cult classic. While on a late night stroll misfit Ginger falls foul of a petrifying beast. Only her sister, Brigitte, is privy to her fate and can temper Ginger’s thirst for blood. Starring Mimi Rogers and Katharine Isabelle (a lady who is winning rave reviews for role in American Mary) this is truly an original and entertaining twist on the werewolf genre.

February 23rd - Dread
Showing as part of our From Page To Scream season Dread is an accomplished and truly unnerving piece of horror. Starring Jackson (Twilight) Rathbone and based on a Clive Barker short story it concerns three college students who study peoples' deepest darkest fears with harrowing consequences.

Long before The X-Files, long before 24, and at around the same time as The Prisoner, there was one show that dared to tackle the subject of "Is our Government lying to us" head on in a manner that was not only dignified but played totally straight; The Invaders.

Running for two seasons from 1967 to 1968, The Invaders was created by Larry Cohen, a man who had cut his writing teeth on classics such as The Fugitive and who would go on to carve a career as a cult movie favourite bringing fans movies such as It's Alive (1974), The Stuff (1985) and The Ambulance (1990).

With bold colours and the legendary line, "A Quinn Martin Production" proudly in place, The Invaders took the B-Movie ...

When you were a child, did you ever think that your toys came to life when you were asleep? Or, did you even think they could come alive and gut you like a fish? This second idea is the premise behind Child's Play, one of the most successful slasher series of all time.

OK, the idea of a killer doll or toy wasn't new, one only has to look back at movies like Dead of Night (1945), Magic (1978), and The Pit (1981) and countless episodes from anthology shows, but the way Child's Play was done totally straight gave it that special edge over what had come before.

Written and directed by genre master Tom Holland, Child's Play was based on an idea from Don Mancini and quickly become a slasher f...

Very few people could write about Hammer films with the credentials that Kim Newman has. He's an award-winning author, a highly respected critic, a noted journalist and talented broadcaster and his passion for cinema is known throughout the industry. Here he takes a look at Horror's Hammer Classics Season.

Into the polite grey world of 1950s British cinema burst lurid EastmanColor decadence. In Essoldos, Odeons and Classics up and down the country, screens that were dominated by well-mannered, stiff-upper lip characters - the repressed romantics of Brief Encounter or the staunch heroes of The Dam Busters - suddenly ran red with gore, and the flash of the scarlet lining of Dra...

10: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Red Right Hand
Lovers of the Scream franchise will know this belter of a track from one of the world's most fascinating and adored song writers. From the album, Let Love In (1994) this has Cave in a vengeful tone which has helped it gain a huge following and has appeared in movies such as Dumb And Dumber (1994) and been covered by countless people including Jarvis Cocker. Cav...

From November 3rd, Horror Channel celebrates vintage 1950s home-grown fantasy and horror with a Hammer Classics Season, The primetime Saturday night season, consisting of four network premieres, which star the iconic Peter Cushing, kicks off with Val Guest's atmospheric masterpiece, The Abominable Snowman.

The other three, all directed by Terence Fisher, are the highly successful adaptations of the classic Universal monster movies: the brilliantly lurid The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the hypnotically sensual and gory Dracula (1958), which launched Cushing and Christopher Lee into global stardom, and The Mummy (1959), perhaps the most critically well-received Hammer movie of all time.

Horror Channel presents its Haunted Halloween Season this October, taking possession of the nation's TVs for thirteen nights with a supernaturally spooky selection of premieres and classic favourites, including the UK TV premiere of Jesse Thomas Cook's The Hexecutioners, a nerve-shredding American Gothic tale of terror. There are also network premieres for the gripping US-remake of The Grudge starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Carles Torrens's paranormal chiller Apartment 143. Amongst returning channel hits are James Wan's supernatural stunner Insidious, John Carpenter's iconic The Fog, and Lluis Quilez's Colombia-shot suspense thriller Out Of The Dark.

He's sold well over 350 million of books, has just as many fans across the globe and celebrates his 71st birthday on September 21st, Stephen King is without doubt the most famous genre author in the world today.

From his first novel, Carrie in 1974, King has scared, inspired, and entertained countless people. His descriptive and raw prose has given us some of the most chilling and memorable characters including Pennywise, Johnny Smith and a dog named Cujo.

On the night of his birthday, Horror is celebrating in style with the first episode of the acclaimed series Under The Dome and a quartet of big screen versions of some of his finest books.

Horror Channel kicks off the Autumn season with eight chilling prime time weekend film premieres including the UK TV premiere of Adam Green's slasher favourite that gave the world Victor Crowley,Hatchet (14th Sep), starring horror icons Kane Hodder, Robert Englund and Tony Todd.

There are also TV firsts for Kieran Parker's Outpost III: Rise Of The Spetsnaz (15th Sep), the third installment of the hit Nazi zombie action horror franchise, Steven Sheil's graphic underground thriller Dead Mine (22nd Sep) set in Indonesia and Will Canon's haunted house horror Demonic (29th Sep).

September also sees network premieres for the gory and hilarious 100 Bloody Acres (8th Sep), the erotic, murderous triple-hander...

It's that time again when the most torturous experience isn't being slowly sliced in half by a deranged chainsaw-wielding maniac but actually deciding what to watch from the massive line-up of over 70 films at this year's FrightFest London on the August Bank holiday weekend. Unless you've found some mad scientist to clone you several times you'll never catch everything so here are ten devious delights I recommend this year.

SUMMER OF 84 The RKSS collective return to FrightFest after wowing audiences back in 2015 with the terrific...

Today marks the UK release of Unfriended: Dark Web. The latest nightmare offering an unnerving and unflinching look into what lies beyond the everyday realms of the internet.

When Matias (Colin Woodell) stumbles across a new laptop which runs a lot better than his current hunk o' junk, he connects with his friends online for their usual game night. He soon finds out that the computer he's picked up has a connection to the Dark Web, a horrific, and unmonitored part of the internet. Matias shares his findings, and his screen, with his friends during the game night, and finds himself the target of the laptop's original owner... who will ...

Nature gets nasty on Horror Channel in July with Animal Attack Season, a beastly collection of movies which will claw their way into your nightmares each Saturday at 9pm.

The season starts on the 7th with the big screen version of a Stephen king classic, Cujo. When sweet St. Bernard dog Cujo is bitten by a bat, he morphs into a dangerous beast and goes on a rampage in a small town. Stay-at-home mom Donna (Dee Wallace) gets caught in Cujo's crosshairs on a fateful errand with her son, Tad (Danny Pintauro). Stuck in their car, Donna and Tad have a frightening showdown with the crazed animal. Then the following week a movie that has real bite, Burning Bright. Johnny Gavenau's latest get-quick-rich scheme is to turn his Florida...